


Barricade Day 2019

by jubilantly



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Barricade Day 2019, Gen, M/M, just a bunch of sads i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 05:25:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19419355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jubilantly/pseuds/jubilantly
Summary: Fics for Barricade Day 2019, in which goodbyes are said, or not.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I posted these on tumblr ([June 4th](https://coelenterata.tumblr.com/post/185366682985/and-you-my-friend-i-will-regret-not-having), [June 5th](https://coelenterata.tumblr.com/post/185389720930/death-that-looming-thing-is-familiar-to-joly), [June 6th](https://coelenterata.tumblr.com/post/185406025750/it-would-be-bitter-enough-to-not-be-able-to)) but, prudent to put things on AO3, right.

“And you, my friend. I will regret not having written about you, about your laughing and your brawling and your–”

Bahorel laughs.

“Truly, Prouvaire, you can’t have forgotten your own poetry only a week after you wrote it?”

Prouvaire makes a face of which probably even he doesn’t know the meaning.

“Not enough, then. I have not written nearly enough about you, about all of your reds, about–”

“Jehan.” Said softly, though still not quiet; and Bahorel puts a hand on Prouvaire’s, squeezes once, leaves their fingers there to tangle. “It was, it is, it will be more than enough.”

“It wasn’t even good poetry.”

“I cherish,” Bahorel tells him, “every line of it, because you wrote it for me, and because you are the one who wrote it.”

He is often louder, more boisterous in his admiration, less one for words to express fondness, but he knows Prouvaire well, and truth be told, he likes being here sometimes, softly speaking, lying on the cluttered floor of Prouvaire’s rooms, night wide and promising all around, the window hanging open to greedily let in air and sound, to allow Prouvaire to be one with it all, to be part of the world without leaving his rooms, without getting up from where he is sprawled on the carpet, ankle nudging a pile of books, head turned to the side to lean against Bahorel’s shoulder.

Bahorel shifts them so that he can look at him better, watch his little frown and his light eyelashes making strange moonlight shadows on his skin.

“I regret,” Prouvaire says finally, very gently, solemn, “that the world shall never know you the way you deserve to be remembered, if we die. I regret not finding the words in time, to tell those who come after us, all those brawlers and poets and friends and lovers, all those dreaming and fighting, what you were, in all your glory, and what you meant to me. And I regret, too, never having found the words to tell you, completely, how I love you.”

“And I you,” Bahorel says, as he always does, and then takes a moment to consider the rest.

He does not find the words, either, but then he is not a poet, and it has never bothered him that he is not.

He squeezes Prouvaire’s hand again, and lifts it up to press a kiss to his knuckles, a promise a reminder an apology a forgiving, all the things Prouvaire might want and need to call it, because Prouvaire needs words for every feeling, and then he lowers it and folds both of his own hands around it.

“If I die,” he says, finally, “I shall be utterly content with what words you did say, and, too, if I die, I shall hope it is a long time until I speak to you of the experience, and I shall welcome you back with me either way.”

Prouvaire looks thoughtful, and stays silent.

“Come now,” Bahorel says, and pulls both of them up, because much as he likes to be where Prouvaire is, he can only lie on the floor, in great danger of turning morose, for so long, “we are both of us too young to die, so we shall not, and we shall see the future, and you shall get to try your hand at writing the words you haven’t yet about me and about anything that pleases you. We have both of us too much left to do, to die just yet.”

“Oh, all you have left to do is start more brawls and be the loudest of all theater goers as often as you can,” Prouvaire tells him, grinning even as the corner of his mouth still speaks of worry, and then he embraces him, suddenly, his lanky frame pressing against Bahorel, arms wrapped tight around his neck.

“I shall see the future,” he says, “and you shall too, and get to read better poetry about yourself.”


	2. Chapter 2

Death, that looming thing, is familiar to Joly, and the threat of it even more so, like his landlady standing impatient in the doorway asking about the rent, and if that bald fellow is still around, disapprovingly.

He’s never thought of death itself as a thing that scares him, really.

Illness scares him because it is slow and mean and painful and sometimes does not even grant death, just all kinds of other losses and pains; if death is quick, he thinks, he used to think, it need not scare him. If death is quick and only briefly painful, and if it means something…

So, no, it does not, did not, scare him that he may die today. But despite having seen death so much, he has never been able to grasp the idea of leaving everything behind with no way of, of fixing anything or saying proper goodbyes, just leaving a sudden hole in the world where he used to be, or worse yet, of someone he knows well leaving a hole in the world by dying suddenly and unjustly.

It’s happened before, yes, yes, he has lost people, to illness and to accidents, to previous barricades even, only something feels different this time, and there is no getting used to it anyway, and so it scares him. It scares him very much, now and always, but especially now, to think of losing these friends he holds dear. – It hasn’t hit him yet, properly, that he has already lost some of them.

It scares him very much that he is losing his friends to something large and unknown he will never understand, and it scares him that for now, it hasn’t quite hit him; his heart and his mind and his body have not yet managed, by aligning senses and thoughts and feelings, to understand what it means that he has lost people who he has only ever known to be so, so alive.

And then, if he thinks about it for too long, it scares him to be responsible, maybe, for doing the thing that Grantaire fears most, and it scares him too to share that fear.

There is a great unhelpful mess in his head, and it is night, too dark and too awake all at once, and they are waiting still and again, for what will surely come and surely devastate them and too for what may not come, and suddenly death is very real, and it has been real before, it is always real, but this is…

In thinking so much about his own death, he feels now, he hasn’t thought enough about others’ deaths, about the wrenching numb horror of it.

He doesn’t want to think about it, but he can’t stop, and what he is circling around, what has been pulling at him and stomping all over his insides and filling his fast-breathing lungs, is: he cannot imagine life without Bossuet anymore, not quite – losing him would be like losing a limb, at this point. Like, he thinks, fondly and hysterically, losing two additional left feet.

They’re both still here, but they may only be still here for now, and for now is not enough compared to all the jokes still to tell and all the jokes still to hear and be surprised by or have anticipated, and all the days he thought he would still get, days made better by Bossuet’s presence by his side always.

For now. Temporary. For now, Bossuet is over there, gesturing at Courfeyrac, leaning, saying something that has him turning half aside in his gesturing, and his eyes meet Joly’s.

Joly smiles, weakly.

Always, forever, alive and here yet, Bossuet knows him well, and smiles back, and elbows Courfeyrac jovially so he can come over to Joly.

Joly is relieved to have him here, and very afraid, and very determined still, because if they’ll be dying, there better be a reason, there better be a result, because he is very afraid and he does not want to think about a world that does not contain this man.

“Joly,” Bossuet says, bowing, with a grin and the most ridiculously serious tone of voice.

Joly smiles less weakly.

“You’ve acquired more holes in your clothing,” he says, instead of any of the mess in his head, “and some burns, too, I think.”

It’s as good a start to a conversation as any, as things always are with them, and Bossuet gasps as though he is surprised and twists around at a very strange and, absurdly, familiar angle, to look at the back of his sleeve, a look of dismay.

“I had rather hoped this would not be the end for my coat.”

“One does always hope that one’s friends will survive,” Joly says, still with the stuffed nose that makes, blessed be colds just this once, the sentence a joke even as it is his entire worried heart in his hands.

Very suddenly, Bossuet’s eyes go to his, a little serious now without the ridiculousness, and he seems to choose his words carefully when he speaks.

“I do wonder how I shall look out for that coat of mine, if I should die.”

“Ah. I daresay your coat is already in quite pitiful condition, but…”

Joly shrugs one shoulder, feels his back complaining, feels Bossuet shift from one foot to the other.

They are standing close in the dark and in the horrible space full of jagged corners that they all have chosen to die in, very close, closer than they would need to to touch, just close enough to see each other well even in this low light.

“Well, if tonight is when my luck finally runs out,” Bossuet says, grinning with all his might, showing that odd endearing tooth that is missing a bit of its corner, “I trust you will care for that old coat of mine. Tell Musichetta too, from me. See that you get to. That coat’s long happy life shall not end a day sooner than it must.”

Joly feels himself grinning back, even though it’s a bit shaky, considering becoming teary.

“I shall do my best not to lose any coat, or cause too much harm to come to that old coat of yours.”

They look at each other, and Joly wants to reach out to take Bossuet’s hand, so he does, and it is warm in his as always, and he wants to be closer, closer ever, but he will not, not here and now, so he merely continues to wait, breathes the strange burnt night air, listens to the low noises around them, looks around for the friends that are alive and will, if there is any justice yet, stay alive, but he can’t be sure, he can’t, and he says, in the best way he knows to, something like what he means to say.

“I know and appreciate,” he tells Bossuet, nearly silent, but they’re so close that it doesn’t matter, “how much you care for your old coat, but if it is your coat or you that has to die…”


	3. Chapter 3

It would be bitter enough to not be able to account for his friends; it is worse still to know for a fact that they are gone, to have heard them die or seen them dead, each of them, and to be standing alone with noone to guide him, stand by his side, make him better and give him purpose and show him why he is fighting, not the _against_ of it all but the _for_.

The memories he has, though, and they are part of why he stands despite everything, his cause and his hope and his belief and his friends, his friends always and forever.

He hasn’t said goodbyes as such, to any of them, but they had known, especially these last hours, that whatever they say may have to do, as a goodbye, and so they had said goodbyes in all but name.

There had not been anything like a proper goodbye with Bahorel, of course, and if things were anything but what they are, he might think, amused, that Bahorel would never allow anything too proper anyway, but as it is he only thinks, _I wish you could have had more fight, my friend_. And he has fought sometimes in this fight with more feeling than calculation, and that has had to do. He has fought to make Bahorel proud.

He wishes, oh how he wishes, that he knew how to make Prouvaire proud, too; he cannot in truth say that he understands all Prouvaire says, but every word of his has been a gift, and if he thinks about it, Prouvaire may have said a goodbye after all. Enjolras might not have known it then, but he is sure, somehow, that in all the words gifted to him and everyone, there was something like a goodbye, at least once, at least one.

Maybe in that poem he only heard others talk of there was a goodbye for everyone, but that makes him think of songs, and thinking of songs is… there are others beside his dearest friends who died at this barricade, and the songs remind him of the boy, and he feels something very heavy at the thought of a child dying under his watch, and there, there is another thing that removes him from the future he wanted to build.

How he wanted them to have a part in that future, all of them. How he _wanted_. For them, always, all of his friends, the better world, for them and of them, a world filled all over with light.

Something built from the bright familiar joy of Lesgle tipping a nonexistent hat at him in the middle of the fight, _good to see you standing, see you on the other side whichever that may be_.

Something built for and with Feuilly, a world for everyone; and Feuilly clasped his shoulder nearly hesitant, just hours ago, and looked at him solemnly, and Enjolras wishes he could tell him again how much he means, how much of Enjolras’ ideal, of that future in his head, is built of what Feuilly is and believes and means to Enjolras.

And Courfeyrac, always, who did say goodbye, grinning, before moving to a spot farther away from Enjolras, and then greeted him again, grinning still, soot and blood and hair sticking to his face, when he was back by his side.

Joly, who Enjolras last saw fussing over someone’s minor injury, absurdly, possibly to distract himself, in all the motions very much like a shadow of how he always used to fuss when something happened to Lesgle, and Enjolras also remembers that Lesgle was gone by that point, and remembers meeting Joly’s eyes and seeing a determination there that made his throat close up a little.

He doesn’t know that he could ever understand that pain, much as he hurts right now, doesn’t know that he has ever been so much part of someone else as Joly and Lesgle of each other, only maybe he has, in his own way, because he had Combeferre.

Combeferre, who touched his hand in a nearly-quiet moment not long before he too died, who touched Enjolras’ hand and met his eyes and managed to say with a look all that he usually takes paragraphs and gesturing for, all of it and then some, and Enjolras has no words, could never find the words, for how he misses him fiercely.

He misses all of them, all of his friends, and he wishes they could have succeeded and he wishes more could have been saved, even though he knows, heart full to bursting, that none of them would have left.

If he thinks too long about it, even in this moment where he hasn’t enough time to think for long really, he can remember more who should have been saved, should have gone on to live.

Pontmercy, he thinks hazily, was alive the last time he saw him, but he hasn’t seen him since, and given the place he last saw him, given where and when they are and how things went, he knows what that means. He knows. At least Pontmercy proved himself, here, he thinks also, and that’s not the right thought, the right thought is, and that one does ease the guilt, that Pontmercy found the belief Enjolras too will die for, was here for a reason, with all the conviction he always had, and if he died he went open-eyed and convinced.

There is a reason they were all here, there is a reason they all died, they all went willingly and with their heads high, and so will Enjolras.

He does wish he could do more, not because he isn’t willing to die, he very much is, and proud to; not because he thinks it was entirely in vain, either; and not just because he wishes they had succeeded, had won, but because it feels like the way he is going is not enough, because it feels for just a moment like the only thing he is doing is refusing to be defeated, but that’s not it, that is not it, he is himself still and he knows with certainty that what he is doing is right and that this death is a good one.

Being alone here at the end is not what he would choose, but here he is, and it _will_ be enough.

He will die alone; so be it – he is neither afraid nor regretful nor anything less than convinced of his ideals.

Except, says the world, then, in a moment that sings.

Except.

Except that he will not die alone, because there is Grantaire and he looks Enjolras in the eyes, steadier than Enjolras has ever seen him, calm, and he’s with him, says so, clear and to the point the way Enjolras thought he couldn’t be; he’s with him, and it is a bright-blinding victory after all.

There is no goodbye with Grantaire either, there is just this: a new beginning right before the end; Grantaire asking permission to stand with him and die with him like all of their friends, and for the same reason, with the same belief.

And in that permission asked bold and soft and simple, and in that permission granted, and in that touch of hands, there is the future he knows will come, there it is, freedom of choosing and pleased knowledge of being equals and brothers; there it is, and he is not alone, not now nor ever, and the future is here already, in his hand holding someone else’s hand.

There are things that cannot be killed, even if he and his are dead and about to be dead, even if all that is left for him is grief and defiance.

There are things that cannot be killed, and more than in knowing this he feels peace and resolve in knowing that he is not the only one in this room who knows it, and in knowing that there will always be more people rising.


End file.
